Major National Security Education Program
awards for two WMU students

Two Western Michigan University students were recently awarded highly competitive Boren awards from the National Security Education Program to conduct research in Kenya and China.

Courtney Marie Buck, a political science graduate student working on a master’s degree in international development administration, received a Boren fellowship worth more than $19,000 to conduct biofuel research in Kenya. Buck was one of 92 recipients selected from a pool of 388 applications.

Jamie LeBlanc-Hadley, a senior majoring in global and international studies with a minor in Chinese, received a Boren Scholarship worth $11,300 to attend Beijing Language and Culture University for the 2008-09 academic year.

LeBlanc-Hadley was one of 150 scholarship recipients from a pool of 697 applications. She was also awarded a WMU President’s Grant for Study Abroad worth $8,000 in April, which is a needs-based scholarship for overseas foreign language study supported by a $5 million endowment.

"The Boren scholarships and fellowships through the National Security Exchange Program are very competitive national awards similar to the Fulbright awards," said Brett Berquist, executive director of international programs at WMU’s Haenicke Institute for Global Education and NSEP campus representative. "Jaime and Courtney worked closely with their faculty mentors and me to prepare a strong application. Their unique study projects would not have been possible without this support. We are pleased that two of three applications from WMU were funded this year, and we hope to see more applications next year."

NSEP focuses on the critical languages and cultures of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Participants are involved in innovative, intensive, and long-term programs designed to provide meaningful opportunities to gain significant competencies in these languages and cultures. The awards are unique in the commitment of recipients to proceed into public service with the U.S. Federal Government upon completion of their academic studies.

A native of Broomfield, Colorado, Buck will spend 10 months, beginning in late May, working predominantly with KOMAZA, a community-based organization focused on sustainable agricultural enterprises and poverty reduction in the Coast Province that she worked for as a volunteer in summer2007. She plans to help implement a pilot project promoting small-scale jatropha farming to improve energy self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability in rural Kilifi District communities.

"Completing my proposed program will provide me with the credits needed to finish my master’s degree and pursue a career in East African sustainable development," Buck said. "My proposed program involves both domestic and overseas training. The domestic component involves nearly three months of intensive language training prior to departing for Kenya to improve my conversational Swahili skills. The overseas component combines supervised research with my unpaid internship at KOMAZA. My research will be carried out with Dr. John Onyari and other biological chemists and biofuel specialists at the University of Nairobi, with whom Western Michigan University shares an academic memorandum of understanding encouraging collaboration in biodiesel research and development projects."

WMU Political Science Professors Paul Clements and Sushi Datta-Sandhu served as Buck’s mentors and assisted her in applying for the Boren Fellowship. "Courtney richly deserves the award," Clements said. "She is one of the strongest students the Masters of Development Administration program has seen in recent years, and she is particularly committed to improving conditions in developing countries. This fellowship allows her to address two critical issues for developing countries—poverty and energy security. She will also be strengthening her Swahili language skills and building on her foundation of professional skills and resources."

While in China, LeBlanc-Hadley will be working on her senior thesis project for the Lee Honors College, which focuses on Chinese economic policy, primarily in Tibet. Her husband, Daniel Hadley, a WMU junior and former Marine who served in Iraq, will also be studying at BLCU under the direction of WMU Chinese language professor Dr. Xiaojun Wang, where they will take intensive Chinese courses, in addition to other academic courses applicable to their degrees. Hadley introduced his wife to Chinese in his freshman year, and she introduced him to global and international studies, which is now his major.

"I'll be focusing on economic policy that China has enacted and, obviously, given recent relations with China and Tibet, I'd like to visit there as well," Le-Blanc Hadley said. "There's data available in China that's not available over here. My main objectives are to become functionally fluent in Mandarin, to gain better insight into contemporary Chinese culture, and to analyze Chinese texts and data related to the country’s economic policies that impact U.S. national security as it relates to the economy and trade."

Professor Gregory Veeck of WMU’s Geography Department served as Jaime’s undergraduate research director and assisted Jaime with crafting her NSEP proposal. "Jaime is an excellent student and certainly deserves the considerable national recognition indicated by this award," Veeck said. "It is an honor for her, and also, I might add, for WMU. The awards for China are particularly competitive because of China's growing international roles in the global economy and the political stage and the Olympics this year. Certainly, in the Geography Department, and I am sure across campus, all her faculty would second my opinion. It has been a pleasure to work with her and I know she will make the most of the opportunity."

As requirements of their awards, both Buck and LeBlanc-Hadley will give back through service to the United States intelligence community utilizing the language skills they will gain through their experiences abroad. The work could include serving as a Foreign Service officer overseas or as an intelligence analyst in the states.

To learn more about the National Security Exchange Program scholarships and fellowships, contact the Haenicke Institute at (269) 387-5890 or write: study-abroad@wmich.edu.